Interesting now that I have glanced at the suit.
1. This is federal so this is rule 11 sanctions WHICH CAN EXTEND TO THE WHOLE FIRM (if there is one)
2. The court found this to be a fishing expedition and not a real case.
3. Rule 11 sanctions are intended to stop hail mary passes regardless of whether they score in order to force proper investigation BEFORE filing suit.
4. The court concludes that the sanctions are in fact against the lawyer and the firm directly.
The theory of the case appeared to be “all guns are bad” and that was all of the pre-filing investigation. It must have been some form of harassment suit that the lawyer thought they could intimidate into settlement.
I wonder if this was some kind of leftist crusading firm. BTW sanctions can go over and above the fees, the judge could reject any kind of settlement with the defendant over sanctions. Given his conduct I suspect the lawyer will try and use the “we will appeal” bs to intimidate the defendants.
We hope this will have a chilling effect on such tangent anti-second amendment efforts.